


After Hours

by seenonlyfromadistance



Category: Perry Mason (2020), Perry Mason (TV 2020)
Genre: Episode Tag, M/M, friendship + the occcasional bj
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:42:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25530784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seenonlyfromadistance/pseuds/seenonlyfromadistance
Summary: “Please,” he says. He could say, 'Just this once'. He could say, 'It’s you I want and I don’t trust anyone like I trust you, not even E.B.' He could say, 'Pete I’ll do anything'. Instead he says, feeling how desperate his words are even as they slip out of his mouth, “come on. I’ll blow you.”episode 4: sometime between the corpse and the golf course
Relationships: Perry Mason/Pete Strickland
Comments: 9
Kudos: 48





	After Hours

**Author's Note:**

> having never read a perry mason book or ever watched any of the old show, this 100% comes out of the dual impulse of "matthew rhys's perry mason should kiss a boy" and "shea whigham is hot" so!! take it or leave it.
> 
> also I'm so worried something bad is going to happen to pete strickland that I'm just posting this before episode 6 drops and hoping for the best

They're drunk. Not a rare occurrence for them, but this is a special occasion. Virgil, appalled by the lump in the basement, needs to be calmed. Not that Virgil would rat on them, but better to make sure he's feeling friendly before taking him home. Between the three of them they make short work of four assorted bottles of whiskey, gin and an old bottle of port scrounged out of the pantry.

Pete slipped off the arm of the sofa and onto the cushions a long time ago, it seems. He listened attentively to Virgil's kinks, to be a tiny man in a woman’s purse, nodding sympathetically ("Sure," he even said. "Domination, right? I get it.") Pete even laughs at Virgil's dirty stories of morgue assistants fucking corpses, which Perry knows he finds disgusting. But he laughs at them anyway, _dutifully_ , Perry thinks rather vaguely, looking at Pete’s hair which has gotten ruffled and is sparkling silver in the dim light. 

His trouser leg, and the leg inside it, is bumping against Perry’s leg, which is far away. The heat from Pete’s leg is close though. Searing. Just their knees are bumping, really, but it's enough to send a hot thrill up Perry's spine. 

Pete ambled out at one point only to return with the few dirty pictures from under Perry’s mattress-- a couple good ones from a divorce case a few years ago. Virgil is appropriately tantalized by them, and once Pete has settled back onto the sofa he sweeps in with sex stories to turn a whore's hair white. Stories of sex in brothels and the backs of cars, stories featuring acts that require explanation, because Perry's never heard of them. Pete's eyes twinkle as he spins his stories. He smiles his smug smile when he gets to the really juicy bits. Perry watches Pete, and Pete watches Virgil, who is entranced. It's a magic trick. No way all these stories are true. Pete does some wild things, but some of these stories are beyond even him. They're good stories though.

It's been sex sex sex all night. Nothing but talk of sex and women and tits and blowjobs and sex. No mention of the man in the basement since they came upstairs.

Four bottles, and that was before Virgil passed out in his armchair.

“We should drive him home,” Pete mumbled, reaching for a fifth bottle. His hand misses, gropes, and finally lands on the intended neck. With concentration, he gets it open and takes a swig. 

“Not now,” Perry says. The room is almost underwater, from where he’s sitting. The curtains are floating away. Pete looks pretty sturdy still, but the rest is amorphous, blurred. “Can’t drive now.” 

Pete shrugs and drinks and hands the bottle over. Perry manages to take it without spilling. Pete seems very upright, just now. His sharp mustache and straight back. Perry slipped down among the cushions hours ago. 

How does he look, he wonders? Sloppy. Sad, probably. Unshaven and dirty and sweaty and drunk. Vulnerable maybe. Fuckable, possibly. In a sad way. 

Pete, he thinks, looks strong. Gaunt, like everyone looks these days, but in control. Sharp. His crisp haircut, his evenly trimmed mustache. Even at his poorest he keeps himself together. Perry can’t quite claim the same. He should try harder, he thinks. 

In trying to hand back the bottle, he heaves himself across the sofa, loses his balance, and lands his hand on Pete’s knee. The bottle, he remembers too late, is in his other hand. But Pete’s knee is warm, and so is his thigh as Perry lets his hand wander up of its own accord. Pete is thin, sure-- but his thighs are solid enough. 

Pete, Pete Strickland, his friend, who he trusts, gives a warning glance down at Perry’s hand on his thigh and says, “Mason.” One eyebrow arches up. 

“Strickland.” The bottle finds the floor so now there are two hands free. The one on Pete’s thigh gives a squeeze. 

Sex sex sex all night and Pete right there. 

He scoffs, but doesn’t move. His nose crinkles and then relaxes. He’s thinking about it, Perry sees in his drunken way. He’s drunk enough to think about it. _Me too_ , Perry thinks. _And drunk enough to do it, too_. 

Too fast, the hand on Pete’s thigh is brushed away. There's not time to even feel Pete's fingers on his. “Maybe you should call your pilot friend, huh?” 

Right. Lupe. Lupe who is wonderful, and sexy, and cares about him even if neither of them say it much. Lupe who is soft and supple and... not here and not what feels right right now. Lupe who is just across the airfield and a million miles away. 

“No, I...” Perry fumbles. “Don’t want her.” 

Sometimes she just isn't what he wants. What he does want is a hold over from the war maybe, or just something inside him. A man, all hard lines and flat planes, is what he wants. Pretty often the man in particular he wants is Pete, but almost never has he said anything. It's a sensitive subject, to say the least. But Pete is always around, and always lighting his cigarettes for him.

“Perry, cut it out," Pete snaps. His lip is twisted into a familiar sneer. Something between disgust and interest. 

But he hasn’t stood up yet, or stormed out. Pete’s still here. Still sitting very close, letting Perry sit very close. Perry leans forward more, so he can look at Pete’s face better. 

“Please,” he says. He could say, _Just this once_. But he doesn’t mean that. He could say, _It’s you I want and I don’t trust anyone like I trust you, not even E.B_. He could say, _Pete I’ll do anything._ Instead he says, feeling how desperate his words are even as they slip out of his mouth, “come on. I’ll blow you.” 

Pete blinks. His face goes comical. Too crass, maybe, even for Pete.

“I will,” Perry repeats. “I want to.” 

“Fuck off, Mason. You’re drunk.” He moves his hands like he might stand up, so Perry stops him with a hand on his thigh, the far leg, so he’s reaching across Pete’s lap.

He looks up, feeling raw and earnest. He’s almost on his hands and knees, almost begging. “So?” 

“So cool it, why don't you?” 

Perry says, “Pete, it'll be good.” He can't quite say, _I want you_. But he does. Pete looks down at him, awkwardly sprawled over the sofa and Pete’s lap, unshaven, his shirt collar open, his mouth lax and his eyes hopeful. It’s probably pathetic, the little sober part of Perry’s brain says. It’s so pathetic it’s disgusting, more disgusting even than what you’re asking. 

Perry says, “You’ll like it.” Which tips the scales, somehow. Pete’s scrunched up, unhappy face shifts into a softer something. Sad maybe. A slippery slope, sadness. Too sad and it won’t be good for anybody. 

"Christ," Pete sighs, and leans back, relaxing into the cushions. His arms stretch along the back of the sofa, and one hand comes to cover his eyes. "Fuck." 

Perry moves forward and one knee, the knee barely keeping it's tenuous hold on the fabric to begin with, slips off the edge of the sofa. He jars to the ground awkwardly, catching himself on a foot and then lowering himself slowly to his knees. Pete's face is to the ceiling, and Perry takes in his sharp jaw and chin and his neck. His five o'clock shadow is creeping down his throat. Perry wants to put his cheek to it, but settles for creeping between Pete's legs. Gently as he can, he pushes Pete's legs open farther. Pete's breath hitches and his jaw clenches. But he doesn't move, or say anything.

Perry moves his hands slowly, giving all opportunity for Pete to change his mind-- he might at any moment, too. Might stand up abruptly, might give Perry a pop in the teeth for his trouble. He almost expects it. Not that Pete would be prone to beat him under any other circumstances, but now... with a passed out coroner just across the room and with Perry's hands creeping towards his crotch. He might get a smack or two.

As his fingers slide to Pete's belt, there's movement under his palms. A stirring. A start. A little smile, nothing more than a smirk, flickers across Perry’s lips. Pete, for his part, looks like he's in pain. The hand covering his eyes has fingers digging into his skin. His sharp mustache is twisted like a wave. 

"Pete," Perry breathes, even with his fingers on Pete's belt buckle. "I don't... have to." 

Pete blows out a breath, hard, sharp. Perry palms him through his trousers and Pete shudders. "No, it's..." His teeth are grinding. Perry can almost hear it. "Just do it." 

He's pleased to say his fingers don't shake as he undoes Pete's belt buckle, or as he unbuttons his trousers. He'd almost expected Pete, proud infidel that he is, to not be wearing underwear, but he is. Cotton. White. About as dingy as Perry's own. This is about as far as he's ever gotten, with Pete. There had been the odd paw in the truck after too many drinks, but this was something more. Big. He unbuttons a few buttons of Pete's shirt, pushing it up along with his undershirt to show his stomach. Skinny. A touch sunken. Sharp like all of him. The slight trail of hair leading below the waistband of his underwear.

When he unbuttons Pete’s fly (a button fly, Perry thinks, fancy that), that’s when his hands start to shake. He’s already half hard as Perry eases him out of his undershorts, and this little handling elicits a high pitched croak. Perry handles him a little more, stroking. He’s hard quickly, and hot, and Perry pauses, breathing heavily. Pete’s chest is shuddering shallowly. Surely he can feel Perry’s breath on him.

“Christ, Perry,” Pete grits. “Get on with it.” The hand over his eyes is going white with pressure. 

So he does. The first touch of his tongue and the hand over Pete’s eyes becomes a fist. When he closes his mouth over the tip of Pete’s cock, the hand lashes out to the arm of the sofa and digs in. From his bad angle below, Perry can see Pete’s furrowed eyebrows now. See that the pained expression is a good pain. He moves, he sucks, he lathes. He tastes. Salt. Velvet. It is what he wanted, because Pete is what he wanted and what he’s getting is Pete. 

Small, pinched sounds start to whisper overhead. He’s being quiet, as quiet as he can. Virgil, they can’t forget, is asleep just in the other chair. God knows what he’d think. He’s an odd bird but maybe he couldn’t stand for this. 

Perry barely thinks about this— it doesn’t seem important. He can only focus on one thing. He’s busy, really, making a catalogue. How Pete tastes and feels, how his thighs clench, how his stomach flutters, the sounds he makes. 

“Christ,” Pete grits out. “That’s...”

Perry grabs hip, digging fingers into Pete’s sharp hip bone. This elicits a gasping hiss. Putting those fingers against stomach turns the hiss into a low moan, sliding up to the ribs slides the moan up an octave. The barest of brushes over a nipple and Pete’s hand twitches off the arm of the sofa. Perry feels the lightest touch against his hair. He hums and Pete gasps out a high pitched squeak. 

Before long, his whole body is fluttering— his stomach, the muscles in his thighs. Perry can feel the flutter against his tongue. Pete’s breathing is getting shallower, faster. The sounds he’s making are stuttering starts and stops. 

“Perr,” he manages, “I—I’m...” His hand taps shakily at Perry's hair. 

And for a moment, Perry thinks he should stop. Finish this up differently. Be able to watch Pete's face as he comes. But that... might be too much. It would be too much to pull himself up onto the couch and kiss Pete’s pulse while he finished him off with his hand. It would be too much even to pull off and make Pete look at him. Too intimate. Too messy. 

Pete, Perry rather suddenly remembers, has three kids. 

He comes with a sharp inhale and a too tight grip in Perry’s hair. Perry goes still and waits it out. He pulls back and swallows, because getting up to go spit seems offensive. Pete still has his hand tangled in Perry’s hair, after all. Salt. Velvet. The room is quiet. Far off an owl hoots and the wind rustles the scabby trees outside the house. The hand in his hair cradles his skull, soft, then floats away.

Pete is panting as Perry gently slips his cock back into his underwear and buttons the fly on his shorts. _Button fly, huh_. Tidy. Equally gently, he lays Pete’s trouser front back in place, but doesn’t do the buttons. The floorboards creak along with his knees as Perry, carefully, slowly, with a hand at the side of Pete’s still trembling leg and the other on the arm of the sofa, close to Pete’s hand, lifts himself off the floor. 

Against his better judgement, though he can’t help it, Perry leans forward as he stands and presses a soft, slack kiss to Pete’s still exposed stomach. He shouldn’t have done it, maybe, but he’s drunk and turned on and hell if he doesn’t want to. Pete’s stomach twitches under his lips. Sensitive. Ticklish, maybe. 

“Fuck,” Pete sighs. 

Perry opens his mouth— he’s about to say _I told you so._ Told you you’d like it. Told you it would be good. Told you it’d be worth it. 

But he doesn’t. It’ll ruin the moment. So he leaves Pete on the sofa, disheveled and sprawled loosely, a little sheen of sweat just starting on his forehead, and goes into the kitchen. The bathroom, while closer, seems shameful. 

Kitchen it is. And in the kitchen, the pathetic little thing that it is, Perry rinses out his mouth and jerks off quickly into the sink. It doesn’t take too long— Pete’s hand in his hair was a feeling he won’t soon forget. 

For a long moment he stays leaning over the sink. His shirt is filthy with two days wear and this night's sweat. 

He fills two glasses with water (well, one glass and one jam jar) and takes them back to the sitting room, where Pete is sitting. 

He’s leaned forward now, the abandoned fifth bottle in his hand. His back heaves like a fault line. Still breathing hard. 

Perry taps him on the arm with the water glass. “You okay?”

Pete lifts his head just enough to look up at Perry, one eyebrow raised into a peak. His shirt is still untucked. He takes the water and drains it. “You weren’t kidding.” 

Perry shrugs. He perches on the arm of the sofa— too close maybe, but Pete doesn’t say anything. 

“Where’d you learn to do that?” 

Perry shrugs again. No point getting into it. A few high school fumbles, a stint in the army, lonely times in Los Angeles after dark. Not much to it.

Pete pats him on the knee. A real _Congrats on a job well done_ pat. It’s hard to expect more, especially from Pete. He was never going to be the kiss-and-cuddle type. 

Pete is, however, always full of surprises: “Do you...” he makes a vague kind of gesture towards Perry’s groin. “Want me to... do anything?” 

That he would even offer is surprise enough. That he seems a little put out that Perry says No is a greater surprise. It’s unclear if he’s disappointed or baffled. But the offer seems genuine. 

“Another time, maybe,” Perry says into his water glass. Pete nods like that’s a reasonable, fair, and obvious response. Like there’ll be another time. 

The air in the room is still and stale, and Perry feels much more sober than he did twenty minutes ago. Pete seems a bit more together too.

Virgil is still asleep in the chair across the room. Utterly unbothered. 

Pete sniffs. His mouth twists up in that familiar kind of way. The lines around his eyes pick up shadows that Perry’s never noticed before. He’s not young anymore. He’s not the lean, mean man of action Perry first met in ‘22. Still lean, leaner maybe, still mean... but now there are the three kids. The wife and the wrinkles. Ten years is no small amount of time. 

Pete taught him how to tail in those ten years. Taught him how to chase a lead and ask a good question. Taught him everything he knows about what’s become his life’s work. 

Leaving his water glass precisely on the table, Pete leans back into the sofa cushions again. He gives a satisfied kind of sigh. 

“Not exactly one of your romance stories.” Perry says it before he knows why. It barely even means anything. 

Pete scoffs. He pats at his pockets like he’s looking for a cigarette, but doesn’t find one. When he stops looking, Perry is still sitting on the arm of the sofa, looking down. _Probably_ , Perry thinks, _I look as miserable as I feel_. 

Pete scoffs again. “Nah, not onea those.” Perry can see him trying to figure out how to say whatever it is he wants to say, which could be anything. Pete’s smart, at least, if not always wise. “I’d take this over those plots anytime, though.” He winks and grins, crinkling his eyes.

Perry can’t help but smile too. No reason to be miserable. It’s all okay, isn’t it? What’s a blow job between friends anyway? If Pete’s not bothered, there nothing to wallow about. In all honesty, Pete’s probably still too drunk to worry about it. Where Perry’s forays into sloppy drunkenness tend to leave him morose and spiraling, Pete remains aloft. Pete floats above it, cheery despite his resting expression of mild disgust. 

“Can I... drive you home?” 

Pete lifts an eyebrow, still smiling. “Aren’t you a gentleman? Okay.” He claps his hands to his knees, steeling himself to stand up. “Okay.” He rocks forward, but doesn’t quite find his feet. He exhales hard. “You sure you’re up to drive?”

Perry shrugs. Pete shrugs too. _Fair enough_. 

Perry offers a hand and Pete takes it. With the help, his feet take his weight and he’s up, wobbling only a little. Perry hangs on for a moment or two longer than necessary. Then Pete takes his hand away so he can tuck in his shirt and do up his trousers. 

“We should, uh,” Perry gestures to Virgil, “get him up.” 

“Right.” But Pete doesn’t move. Just stands there for a minute, staring at the floor. He puts his hands on his hips. The gears are grinding away. “What’re we gonna do with that stiff?” 

Right. George Gannon in the basement. 

“Forgot about him.” 

Pete chews at the inside of his cheek, considering. 

“Still gotta get that autopsy, don’t we?” Perry nods. Pete nods to match. Both of them stare at the floorboards, where ten feet below, a body is starting to decompose. “Okay I got it... I got an idea.” 

He lays it out slow and careful— it’s a drunk plan, but it might work. Perry checks his wristwatch. It’s already one in the morning. That doesn’t seem late enough, somehow. Should be two at least, maybe even three. One in the morning and Perry is starting to feel it. He’s tired, and his knees are starting to ache from kneeling on the floor. Should’ve dragged Pete into his bed and slept before either of them remembered the body, or Virgil. Should’ve spent two hours dozing side by side. It’s too late for that now, since Pete’s plan isn’t half bad. 

Perry manages to drag out a road atlas and they pick just the right spot. A golf course close to downtown. Twelfth hole sand trap. It’s close to the road and the sand trap, as Perry remembers it, is pretty deep. 

“You drive him home. I’m not—” Pete pauses, pursing his mouth like he's holding back being sick. “I'm not up to drive quite yet.” 

It has to be two trips, of course. Virgil, even half unconscious, will notice if he’s sharing a car with a dead man. 

“You’ll get things ready here?” 

Pete pulls a face. Of the two jobs, the one with the corpse is less pleasant to him. But it doesn't involve driving back and forth across town, so he nods. 

It’s funny, Perry thinks, how quickly a person can move on from getting blown. How Pete can look him in the face like Perry wasn’t sucking his dick less than half an hour ago. How quickly they went from drunken intimacy to soberly planning to ditch a coroner and a body. All it took was Pete tightening his belt and they're back to work. _Huh_. 

—

When he gets back, Pete is not where Perry left him. The body has been brought upstairs, and is wrapped in a tarp by the door. But Pete isn’t there. 

After a quick search— not in the bathroom, not in the kitchen. Not in the bedroom or out on the back porch— he finds Pete in his parents room. It’s a room he hasn’t touched since moving back into the farmhouse. He and Lupe have probably fucked on every surface of the house, but never in his parents room. Always in his little childhood single bed, or on the counter in the kitchen, or the floor in the hallway. Never in his parents' larger bed. Felt too weird.

Pete’s there now— probably it was a door he opened and a bed he found and he didn’t think anything more about it. He’s propped up against the pillows, mostly, and asleep. His chin is tucked down against his chest. Looks uncomfortable. Looks like he tried to wait up and dozed off. 

Perry checks his wristwatch. It’s half past two. The sun won’t be up until six, he calculates. The first game of golf won’t start until seven. 

There’s time. So he goes around the other side of the bed and gingerly lays himself down. He doesn't bother to take off his shoes.

“Mason?” comes a little growl from next to him. Pete has one eye cracked open and is peering at him groggily.

“Strickland. Sleep a little more, it’s alright.” There’s an old alarm clock on the bedside table— his mother’s, as he recalls— and Perry sets it for four. That should be enough time. Folding his hands over his stomach, Perry closes his eyes. 

A few minutes later, a grunt finds his ears. "Hey." Perry doesn't bother to open his eyes. It's too pleasant to lay here in the dark. He manages a questioning hum. "Come here." 

"Huh?" His eyes are barely open before Pete has hands in his shirt and is pulling him over to his side of the bed. It's awkward and the best Perry can really do is roll onto his side. It all feels a little hazy, especially Pete's serious blue eyes being so close to him. A little unreal, but not quite like a dream. 

Real enough, and more real still when Pete mumbles something that sounds like, "I was thinking-- I never--" and then presses their mouths together. 

It's a shock, to say the least. But not a bad one. Just a lightning strike that short circuits Perry's brain. Pete, who barely let him blow him earlier in the evening. The same Pete, that same familiar Pete, is now kissing him. His mustache is a tickle against Perry's upper lip, his hand is holding Perry's bicep. That same Pete Strickland nips at his lip. Perry opens his mouth and finds Pete's tongue waiting, and then they're kissing in earnest. Pete is pushy, of course, but good. Perry lets Pete do what he wants, lets himself be washed over in the feeling of Pete's teeth against his lip, his hands roaming from arm to rib to throat, the stale-whiskey taste of his mouth. It's good. He's awfully good at it. 

Perry puts a hand on Pete’s side as Pete’s hand slips to Perry’s jaw, his fingers dig into the soft space behind Perry’s ear. 

When he pulls away, he’s panting. Perry too. Their foreheads bump and Pete hums, more thoughtful than anything. “Okay,” he says. He’s still close enough Perry can feel the warmth from his skin, his breath. “Alright.” 

“Yeah?” 

“It’s not so...” he pulls his hand away, dragging fingertips scraping over Perry’s scruffy cheek, trailing over the corner of his mouth. He pauses. Whatever word he was searching for escapes him. One shoulder lifts then falls. Then he opens his eyes. It feels a little silly, Perry thinks, to be 42 and laying in bed doing nothing but kissing. A little silly, sure, but nice enough. The loose smile on Pete's face seems to say that he thinks the same thing. "Not half bad."

"What? Me?"

"Yeah, you." Pete's smile gets a little wider, a little warmer. He taps Perry on the lip with one finger. "All of it." 

It must be meant kindly. For all his romance stories in the newspapers, Pete isn't quite capable of being sappy. This is the peak of his sappiness. The cozy look in his eye is sappier than whatever proclamations Perry might imagine. And there's promise there. There's possibility. That's pretty good. It feels good anyway. 

And they still have an hour and a half to waste. 

—

When Perry pulls up in front of Pete’s house, it’s almost morning. The horizon is brightening; streaks of pink are coming up over the trees. The windmill across the street is idly spinning, like an abandoned toy. The Strickland house is dark. No one’s waited up for him. No one’s left a light on for him either— too expensive, but that’s probably only part of it. 

“See ya later, Mason.” Pete grits as he eases himself out of the truck. There’s a hangover developing, or at least a little post-drive, post-body disposal queasiness to work off. “After noon, maybe.” 

“Sure thing. Thanks for the help.” 

“Hey,” Pete winks, though a little stiffly. “Thank you.” 

Perry watches as he works his way to the door, which opens just as he steps up onto the porch. One of the kids comes out, one of the little ones, still in her pajamas. Perry watches Pete bend to scoop her up, smiling, and exchange a few soft words with her. He turns and points to Perry in the truck. 

“Say hello to Uncle Perry,” he hears Pete say. The little girl's voice rings out across the morning, echoing her father's words. Pete waves and his daughter imitates him, waggling her little arm. 

Perry waves back. Then he drives off. The sun is up properly now. He'll be squinting all the way home.


End file.
